


Awakening

by Tangerine_Catnip



Series: The Best and Worst Intentions [1]
Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Atlas CEO Rhys, Dark Comedy, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Inspired by Music
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-02
Updated: 2017-03-16
Packaged: 2018-09-27 22:22:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10054148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tangerine_Catnip/pseuds/Tangerine_Catnip
Summary: The Atlas Corporation is hard at work recycling or reusing the infrastructure abandoned on Pandora after the fall of Helios. One of the more promising sights is the bunker in Thousand Cuts canyon where Hyperion once safeguarded a vault key.Rhys has a hunch that the secrets buried below the bunker will shed some light on how Handsome Jack managed his meteoric rise to power, but instead of weapons, alien technology, or trade secrets, he finds something infinitely more precious; a survivor.





	1. This girl who’s slept

**Author's Note:**

> is anyone there?  
> oh…hi!

Rhys' fingers closed around the balcony railing. The view in front of him was breathtaking.

To his left was the endless expanse of Pandora's largest desert, The Dust. To his right, Thousand Cuts canyon split the earth into countless razor-sharp shards. Right in front of him was the volcanic mountain range dubbed 'Hero's Pass' where lava dredged from deep in the planet's core spewed forth.

As gorgeous as the view off the side was, though, it didn't overshadow the bunker itself. Its designers had created a diamond whose surroundings only enhanced its lustre.

Like the gemstone, the building was circular with a narrow top and even narrower bottom perched on the mountain's summit. The walls and roof were made of white interlocking hexagonal tiles that defused the sunlight that struck them into a pale glow.

It even had a rooftop garden and a waterfall that poured off the side of the mountain and into the canyon below. The plants had gone to seed over the years, mostly the vines which had spread along the external walkways and dangled over the edge, but they only managed to lend a needed splash of colour.

The only real detractor to its appearance was the rusted corpse of a gigantic saucer-shaped robot that had crashed landed on its roof.

The Atlas ground team had identified the robot as the BNK3R. A Hyperion robot built and designed by Handsome Jack to protect the bunker.

The site was abandoned soon after the vault hunters broke in and tried to steal the vault key. Which was about all Hyperion company records had to say on the matter. Rhys was yet to be convinced, however.

The defences employed on the mountain were virtually impenetrable, but it didn't take a genius to ask an obvious question. Was it more effective at keeping out vault hunters than the thousands of kilometres of vacuum between Pandora and Helios?

As far as Rhys could tell, the vault key would have been much safer serving as a paperweight in Jack's office or chilling next to the GORTYS beacon and his girlfriend's old hat.

Handsome Jack was never known for his common sense, but he had still managed to run one of the most powerful corporations in the six galaxies. He wouldn't have made such an obvious mistake when handling one of the companies most valuable assets.

There had to be information that Rhys was missing. A reason that Jack had built this place that had nothing at all to do with the vault key.

While his logic seemed stable enough, Rhys wouldn't have acted on it if it hadn't been for 'the feeling'. Rhys knew deep down that there was something important he needed to see here. Something that no one else would be able to find.

Ever since Rhys had shared his head with an AI recreation of Pandora's least favourite dictator, he felt like he had a much clearer idea of who Handsome Jack was.

Occasionally, memories that weren't his own would drift to the surface. Flashes of a life he hadn't lived. A woman's face, an empty wheat field against a purple sky, a chair covered in wires.

It didn't happen often enough to really bother Rhys. When they finished digging through Hyperion's past, he'd get someone to have a look at it. Assuming he figured out how he was even going to explain the problem.

"Hey boss, we've finished setting up the rigging rope."

Rhys pushed himself away from the railing and turned to the speaker.

Keith, Atlas' chief salvage technician, was waiting for his CEO with a length of kernmantle rope over one shoulder and a body harness over the other.

Rhys nodded and took a deep breath in. He tried to put on a strong face for his employees, but the task ahead of him was making it difficult.

"You ready?" Keith asked.

"Oh, y-yes. I'm fine," Rhys replied, flinching when his voice cracked.

Keith laughed and shook his head.

"Well, c'mon then."

The two of them made their way down the moss-covered staircase to the second level.

Helicopters with Atlas shields painted on their sides were arriving with fresh loads of equipment and workers. A campsite was being set up on the topmost platform where the lion's share of the salvage team would be living for the next 3-5 months. They would stay until they had scraped out every scrap of Hyperion technology for repurposing or reverse engineering.

Keith stopped at a pair of double doors, hidden under the upper platform and covered in vines. When the bunker had been in operation, this was the point of egress used by Handsome Jack.

Lacking the required credentials, the salvage team had elected to bash the doors open, discovering seconds later that there was a three-kilometre drop just beyond the threshold that plunged straight through the mountain and deep into Pandora's crust.

A few of the team had suggested trying to get the elevator running again, but in the meantime, Atlas had made due with a climbing rope and motorised winches.

"Quite the hole, isn't it?" Keith observed as he leant over the edge. "Whatever HJ wanted to hide down there, he wanted it hidden really badly."

"He was paranoid beyond belief. It wouldn't really surprise me if we find a stack of playboys down there," Rhys said.

"Yeah, right." Keith frowned and stepped away from the empty elevator shaft. "You sure you want to do this, Boss? We could end up disturbing his ghost or 'summit. Being haunted by the likes of 'im would be a hell of a thing."

Rhys snorted. "You have no idea."

Keith gave Rhys a concerned eyebrow raise, and Rhys scrambled to swap the subject.

"Soooo, how do I put this thing on?"

Keith walked Rhys through setting up his harness. He stepped into the bottom half while Keith tightened the straps around his legs, hips and chest. Fully suited up, Rhys walked over to the edge and clipped the front of his harness into the electric winch.

"Now keep your legs against the wall and remember to let go of the trigger if you need to stop," Keith explained. "Roger and Stacy will be waiting for you at the bottom. They've just finished blasting open the hidden room we found on sonar."

Rhys nodded and with Kevin's guidance, he swung himself out over the mouth of the shaft.

"Try not to look down… or up I suppose, once you get far enough."

It was a very long way to the bottom. To help keep his calm, Rhys tried counting each click as the winch's wheels turned over. The length of reinforced rope fed through the machine inch by inch, lowering him into the dark.

The whole climb took about a half an hour, but it felt like an eternity. When Rhys' feet finally touched solid ground, he let out a titanic sigh.

"You okay there, boss?"

Roger stepped forward to help Rhys out of his harness. He had fire engine red hair and a huge grin on his face. Stacy was standing behind him, her mouse brown hair tied in a high pony tale and a clipboard clutched to her chest.

"Y-yeah," Rhys replied. He glanced back up the way he had come. A tiny pinprick of light was barely visible at the far end of a dizzying expanse of sheer stone walls.

Rhys dropped his gaze, sensing a wave of vertigo coming on. He wasn't bad with heights per-say, but his stomach didn't have a stellar track record for performance in extreme situations. Luckily, that's when Stacey stepped forward to deliver her report and give him something else to think about.

"Sir, we've just started excavations into the secondary chamber, and it's unlike anything I've seen before. The wiring and the infrastructure seem like it was meant to connect a supercomputer to the Hyperion network, but I haven't found a single trace of the computer itself."

"Could it have been removed?" Rhys asked as Roger snapped open the clasps around his chest.

"Not without leaving a mark. Either Hyperion never got around to building it, or we're missing something."

"That's not even the weirdest thing, though," Roger chimed in. "Come over here, you've got to see this."

Rhys walked with the two of them down a long hallway with a rounded ceiling. A sharp corner lead into a hole reinforced with steel girders and concrete. Beyond was a huge circular chamber, it's walls lined with massive flat screens facing the raised platform in the centre.

Rhys winced, a sudden pain shooting through his forebrain. He pressed a hand against his head, he knew this place… This was where-

"Do you see those pipelines?" Roger asked, cutting in on Rhys' thoughts and sending the memories he was desperately trying to catch scurrying into the underbrush.

Rhys shook his head and followed where Roger was pointing. Four rubber tubes big enough to send beach balls through originated from four separate points in the ceiling and met in the middle above the platform.

"We found traces of Eridium in them, and they seem to match up with our map of Hyperion's pumping stations. This could account for the missing 25% of Hyperion's refined Eridium production! Everything that left the refinement centre but never made it to weapons production or export."

Stacy huffed and shot a glare at her partner. She released the bear hug on her clipboard and began gesticulating with it.

"But the pipes don't go anywhere after this! If a quarter of Hyperion's Eridium production was being sent here, where did it all go?"

Rhys ducked under her arm, barely avoiding getting her clipboard embedded in his skull. If Stacy noticed she had almost brained her CEO, she didn't care enough to stop talking.

"-and what about the screens all over the walls? Who are they for? There's just no way this room was a storage facility for Eridium-"

After dodging the clipboard, Rhys wandered further into the chamber. At the centre of the platform, there was a huge container with what looked like a door built into one side.

"Hey, guys, what's this thing?" Rhys asked, cutting Stacy off mid-rant.

"We... have no idea," Rodger said, jogging over to where Rhys was standing. "I think, it's some kind of safe. We haven't found a way to open it that won't risk damaging whatever's inside."

He and Rhys approached the object, taking the step up onto the platform.

"It repels sound waves, so an ultrasound is out, and we've broken like five drills trying to make a crack."

"What about the keypad?" Rhys asked, pointing to the row of alphabetical keys built to the left of the door.

"It only lets you try five combos every hour. We're working on a bypass. It's seven letters, probably a pass phrase."

Rhys reached out, the fingers of his cybernetic hand hovering over the keypad.

"Can I try?"

"Sure, boss. Good luck."

Rhys' echo eye activated. He scanned the keypad, but it didn't tell him anything Roger hadn't already,

He started running phrases through his built-in interface. It automatically counted the letters in each.

'Suck my dick' was too many letters but "Fuck you" would fit perfectly. Rhys decided against trying. It was a little bit too direct to be something Jack would find amusing.

Whatever was inside had to be as dangerous as it was valuable if Jack had felt it necessary to store it on Pandora and not on Helios with him.

Rhys tapped his fingers against the keypad, spelling out "I am a god". The panel flashed red and displayed the number 4, indicating his remaining tries.

He was thinking along the wrong lines. Even though the doors to the bunker had been forced open, Rhys' technicians had been able to discover that the voice activated password used to be; 'I love you.' A combination of words Rhys had a hard time imagining Jack would ever say. Maybe this passphrase was similar?

Rhys closed his eyes, digging deep into the back of his mind. 'come on Jack.' Rhys thought. 'you wanted me to find this, what's the password?'

Empty silence met his request. Ever since Rhys ripped out his original implants, the only voice in his head was his own. If he wanted this information, he would have to find it himself.

"I love you," Rhys repeated under his breath, too quiet for Roger to hear. Another silence, then it hit him.

Rhys tapped the keyboard, typing two words.

Im sorry

The screen flashed green. Roger let out a 'whoop' of excitement, startling Stacy who yelped and clutched her clipboard.

The panel on the side of the container started to slide down, and a waterfall of dark purple liquid poured from the ever-expanding opening. It hit the metal floor and splashed all over Rhys, coating him in the goo from his collar down. He slammed his hand against the keyboard, but it just kept on coming.

Roger and Stacy managed to get out of the way of the tidal wave, jumping to either side of the river of slurry.

"That's… liquefied Eridium!" Stacy shouted. She moved closer to the puddle to get a better look, mindful of where she put her feet.

"It's not poisonous, right?" Rhys asked meekly. He could feel it soaking into his socks. He really liked the pair he was wearing. They had a pattern of pugs wearing bandanas.

"No. You're thinking of slag. Pure Eridium is actu-"

Stacy cut herself off with a blood curdling scream. Both Rhys and Roger jumped and spun to face her.

Stacy was pointing at the container, a look of pure horror plastered on her face.

"There's someone in there!"

A loud slap punctuated her statement as something large slopped out of the container and hit the floor.

Rhys looked down to see the body of a young woman splayed out on her stomach in the puddle of Eridium.

He leapt forward, sending up a splash as he landed on his knees beside her. Rhys couldn't imagine that she was still alive, but he needed to at least try to help her.

He grabbed her by the shoulders and rolled her over onto her back. A mess of wet black hair covered her face like a mask and Rhys reached down to brush it out of the way.

"No, no, no! Bend her over, so she won't choke!" Stacy yelled.

"Boss, try chest compressions!" Roger added.

Rhys was about to shout at them to come over and help when the woman in his arms shuddered violently, and a flow of purple spilt from her lips. Rhys propped her up further, making sure all the liquid came out.

She gasped, and her eyes shot open. She stared up at Rhys, her bright blue eyes meeting his.

With a jolt, Rhys realised he knew her name.

"Angel!"

Angel's eyes were glazed over, her complexion white as rice paper.

"D-dad?" She gasped. Her trembling hand closed over his wrist. Rhys was caught speechless, and before he could recover, Angel's eyes closed and her body slumped against him.

Rhys tried to shake her awake, but she remained unresponsive.

"Stacy, get me a field medic! Roger, send word to the team to prep for an emergency extraction!" Rhys ordered. The two of them snapped into action, sprinting back down the hallway to find the rest of the crew.

Rhys shifted, so he was holding Angel in both arms. He pressed his ear to her chest, she seemed to be breathing alright, but her heartbeat was dangerously slow.

"I thought you were dead," Rhys murmured.

This was way too much to process right now. Rhys just needed to get Angel out of this hole and back to Atlas HQ so they could take care of her.


	2. a hundred years

Angel awoke with a start. She blinked once, then twice. She rubbed at her eyes with both hands, wiping away something thick and slimy on her eyelids that made them stick together. She stared up at the white concert ceiling, a lingering sense of dread in the back of her mind gathering steam as she adjusted to consciousness.

Something was wrong. She shouldn't be awake. She shouldn't be alive. Angel remembered saying her final words to her father, one last stab at making him see what a monster he had become before she succumbed to the poison he had pumped into her.

That's where her life should have ended, but she remembered something else after that, someone leaning over her with slicked back hair and mismatched eyes.

No… it couldn't be. She had seen the future. She knew that her rebellion would be her last act and that it was the only way the Vault Hunters would be able to best her father and put an end to his cruelty.

Yet, here she was. Stuck in the land of the living, her hard-won victory torn from her.

She twisted around to see her surroundings. She was lying on a hospital cot with an intravenous tube taped to her wrist and a heart rate monitor overhead.

The room around her stunk of corporate cleanliness, from the inoffensive beige curtains to the fake wood dresser and shining flat screen TV.

Angel had visited a hospital room just like this when she had the implants in her skull installed. She remembered it clearly because Jack had told the medical team not to speak to her; spoiling the only time she had been out of her chamber with stony faces and tightly pursed lips.

Angel pressed a hand to her neck. To her shock, her hand met only bare throat. Her collar was gone, and with it, the weight that had plagued her for as long as she could remember.

It was gone, and she was free. Unless… unless her father found her. If he managed to fix or replace it and force it back around her neck.

Angel sprung up and yanked the needles out of her arm. She was stiff all over and even getting out of bed was painful.

While the collar was off, she could use her siren powers… but could her powers actually help?

Angel knew she had offensive capabilities at one point in her life, but she had been under Jack's control for so long she had no idea how to use them. Normally this was the point where Angel would look into the future to see what path to take, but without the power of the Hyperion network behind her, it was as much a mystery to her as it was for everyone else.

The door to Angel's room opened, and a nurse in dark green hospital scrubs walked in.

"Oh hello-" she began, but Angel never lets her finish.

"Get out of my way!"

Angel lifted her hand like Maya did when she summoned her phaselock. She had no idea what she was going to do with it, but it at least looked like she was about to spew lighting bolts.

"I-I'm a siren. Get out of my way or I-I'll..."

The nurse held up her hands, palms facing towards Angel.

"Okay let's just take a deep breath and-"

The white tattoos that stretched across the whole of Angel's left side lit up, glowing a bright crystal white.

"Get Out!"

* * *

 

Rhys ran full tilt down the hallway. Four Atlas soldiers on his heels. They reached what should have been the sliding the doors to the medical centre, but was quickly turning into a battle station. A large metal mobile barricade was jammed up against the opening, establishing the dividing line between the incident area and the safe zone.

The commander who had taken charge of the situation waved Rhys over to begin his briefing.

"Sir, we have no suspected casualties, but the siren has three hostages, all members of the medical staff, and she's… um… frozen the lobby."

"Frozen?" Rhys repeated.

Rhys leant over to get a look over the barricade, noticing the icicles that had formed in the doorway. With these clues in place, Rhys looked a little harder, realising that what he thought were white tile in the waiting room floor was actually a thick layer of snow.

Siren powers were about as diverse and mysterious as the woman who wielded them, but a level of elemental control seemed to be one of the more universal constants. Angel must have some variation of cryokinesis and had used it to turn the whole lobby into a winter wonderland.

"Has anyone tried to talk to her yet?" Rhys asked.

"No, we're waiting to see if she calms down before engaging."

Rhys nodded, grit his teeth, and made up his mind.

"Alright, I'm going in."

The commander frowned at Rhys and shook his helmeted head.

"Sir, I'd recommend against that. We're dealing with a being capable of lowering the atmospheric temperature below zero in a matter of seconds. She's issued threats against both myself and my men. Mostly involving freezing very vulnerable parts of their body."

"She's not dangerous, she's just confused. She was locked in a bunker for almost two years."

"If you say so." The commander replied, his tone implying that his sense of professionalism was the only thing stopping him from adding 'you idiot' to the end of that sentence. "My men and I will cover you from here."

Rhys approached the barrier and vaulted over it into the hospital lobby. His designer shoes sunk into the snow and it filled up the bottom half of his pant legs. Now that he stopped to think about it, Rhys really should have gone to get a coat and some boots.

Rhys wrapped his arms around his chest and started wading through the thigh deep snow. Struggling to pull his legs out of the hole he made with each step.

He didn't have to go far, Angel was sitting on the check-in desk ten feet in front of him. She had her head down, her long black hair covering her eyes, and was still dressed in a loose white hospital gown, heedless of the freezing temperature.

Her hostages, with included two nurses and a doctor, were sitting in wooden chairs to her left. An old-fashioned potbelly stove sitting between them.

They didn't seem to be in any state of distress, in fact, the doctor looked more bored than anything.

Rhys looked back from them to the stove. It looked perfectly in place among the snow, almost like a Christmas greeting card, but the longer he looked at it, the more he wondered where it had come from. Did they just have it in the basement? Where had Angel found the wood to build a fire?

Rhys left off thinking about it, for now, Angel was watching his progress, and he needed to be giving the very possibly deadly siren his full attention.

Rhys held both his hands up so she could see they were empty. Angel slid off the desk and lifted her hand as well, her tattoos lighting up along her arm and chest.

"Hi, Angel."

"I want to leave."

Rhys licked his lips and nodded. When he had pictured this in his head a second ago, he had vastly underestimated how intimidating a pissed-off siren was. All she had to do was wiggle her fingers, and he'd become a cyborg-popsicle.

His first instinct was to throw himself at her feet and agree to whatever she wanted, but the businessman in him would die before making a deal without bargaining first.

"The doctors haven't cleared you for release yet. I'd rather not have you leaving until after we've made sure you're okay. You've been out for a really long time."

Angel's eyes narrowed. She looked Rhys over, her frown deepening as she Identified his outfit as 'corporate scum attire'.

"Are you in charge if this place? Did my father send you?"

"No. I'm Rhys, head of the new Atlas Corporation."

Moving slowly so he wouldn't startle her; Rhys reached out a hand and pointed at the blood-red shield logo on the wall of the waiting room.

Angel blinked at him then turned to examine the room, reacting to her surroundings as if she had never seen them before.

"A-atlas? Not..."

"Not Hyperion," Rhys confirmed. He took a deep breath in. He didn't want to burden Angel with too much new information at once, but she needed to know how much time she had missed.

"Hyperion went out of business a year ago. We found you while exploring the abandoned ruins they left behind."

Angel stared at him, her mouth hanging slightly open. She brushed her loose hair back behind her ear, visibly gathering her strength for her next question.

"And what happened to Handsome Jack?"

"He's..." Rhys trailed off. He was hoping to have more time to figure out how to tell Angel this. "He's dead."

Angel sunk to her knees, the illumination of her tattoos winking out like a snuffed candle. She pressed both hands against her cheeks, covering her eyes.

She stayed like that for a moment, then her shoulders started to shake as she took in broken gasps of air.

Rhys hurried over, but once he was kneeling beside her, he realised she wasn't crying, she was laughing, deep belly laughs that made her whole body shake.

"Angel?"

The snow underneath Rhys' folded legs turned a strange blue colour and began shuddering like an image on a TV with bad reception. Rhys tried to touch it, but his fingers met empty air.

He spun around. The lobby was completely back to normal, without even a tiny puddle where the ice used to be. The chill that had been slowly creeping down Rhys' spine was gone, along with any trace of numbness in his fingers and toes.

"It was… an illusion?" Rhys murmured, the realisation popping out of his mouth as soon as it dawned on him.

Angel had been bluffing the whole time. She changed the environment to trick people into thinking she was more dangerous than she really was.

That explained the stove as well. Angel needed something to keep her hostages warm so she just plopped down the classic image of a roaring fire, heedless of how antiquated It would look in the modern lobby.

Rhys thought he should feel relieved now he knew Angel couldn't turn Atlas HQ into Santa's workshop, but he couldn't shake the feeling that Angel's true power was much more dangerous.

* * *

 

Rhys slipped in through the doorway to Angel's room. A nurse was standing by her bedside, one of the two that Angel had taken hostage yesterday. Apparently, there weren't any lingering hard feelings.

Rhys waited until the nurse passed by him before taking a seat in the armchair next to Angel's bed, hiding his hand and the object he was holding behind his back.

Angel watched him closely the entire time, her forehead scrunched up and her lips tightly pursed.

"I brought you a little something," Rhys explained. He took out the medium sized package wrapped in blue paper and held it up for Angel to see.

Angel shifted away from him, pressing one closed fist against her chest. She stared at the package in complete silence until it got awkward, then a few more moments after that.

"This, uh… this is the part where you take it," Rhys added

"Oh, yeah right."

Angel took the package and turned it over in her hands, examining the folded corners and the tape holding them down.

"What is it?"

"Why don't you open it and find out?"

Rhys thought of asking 'haven't you ever received a present before?' but he wasn't sure he rally wanted to know the answer to that.

Angel slowly began undoing the corners, picking at the tape with her fingernails until it peeled away clean. After she had got one side open, she tipped the package upside down, and a box slid out and dropped into her lap.

Angel gasped when she saw the illustration on the front of the box. A large chocolate confection split down the middle so you could see the creamy filling and bright red Marciano cheery inside. She looked from the box of chocolates to Rhys, a look of slowly growing horror on her face.

"How did you…" she whispered. Angel closed her eyes and shook her head. She picked the box of chocolates back up and thrust it back into Rhys' hands.

"Um… thanks, but I don't really like these," she insisted.

Rhys blinked at her, barely holding himself back from saying 'but these are your favourites'. He shouldn't know that about her. Just like he shouldn't have known her name or who she meant when she said 'dad'.

"What kind of candy do you like then? Rhys asked.

"I'm not really a sugar person."

Rhys dropped the box behind his chair, eager to get it out of eyesight. He folded his regular and robotic fingers together in his lap and twiddled his mismatched thumbs. Rhys was widely considered the most erudite CEO's this side of Eden 12, but he still managed to get haplessly awkward whoever he didn't need to sell something to someone.

"You said that I could leave as soon as your doctors release me," Angel said, breaking the silence.

"Yeah, I did. I guess that's soon?"

"Tomorrow. They can't find anything wrong, but they want another night of observation."

"You were submerged in a tub of Eridium for almost two years. It's hard to believe you're ready to get up and go so soon."

"Well, I am."

Rhys frowned. He didn't want to see her go so soon, but any argument that she should stay was flimsy at best. He had so many questions he wanted to ask her, but every single one of them would betray the fact that he had more than a passing familiarity with her father.

"Do you have anywhere to go?" Rhys asked.

Angel pulled her legs up and pressed them to her chest, twisting her fingers into the light hospital blanket.

"There's a floating city on Pandora called Sanctuary. I have… I have friends there."

"You mean the Vault Hunters?"

Dropping Angel off in a town full of some of the most prolific killers in Pandora didn't exactly sound like a stellar idea to Rhys. Especially since, from what he understood of the events, Angel's qualification for the title of 'friend' boiled down to 'helped me commit suicide to spite my father.'

"I should be able to get you there," Rhys said, "-the Crimson Raiders don't exactly trust Atlas, even though we're a completely different compony then the one that abandoned them. I've managed to set up some trade deals in the past, though, so they probably won't shoot us down on sight. I'll tell Lieutenant Colonel Norfolk to ECHO ahead, so they know we're coming."

Rhys pulled himself up from his chair, already jotting down a reminder in his ECHO implants' scheduling assistant. He'd want to bring a fair number of troops along with him to help maintain appearances. The Vault Hunters and their supporters were major players in Pandora's blood-soaked version of politics, and they needed to be treated with the same caution as a rival corporation or military power.

Half distracted by his planning, Rhys paused at the end of Angel's bed and asked, "Is there anything else you need?"

"Yeah…"

Angel folded her legs underneath her, straightened her posture, and brushed down the skirt of her white hospital gown with all the primness of a Victorian woman attending a ball.

"I want you to know, that if you try to double cross me, I'll fight back with everything I have. I won't go down easy, and If it comes to it; I'd rather be dead then imprisoned. Take that however you want."

Angel kept her eye locked with Rhys', her voice carrying all the emotion of someone reading the fine print at the bottom of a contract.

Rhys felt a cold shiver pass down his spine. If it were anyone else, he would have tried to make a joke out of it to lighten the mood, but Angel had already made the decision to die for her freedom, and there was no reason to doubt she would hesitate the second time.

"You're not Hyperion, but I don't know for sure that you aren't like them. All I know is you're a businessman, and businessmen don't let opportunities slip through their fingers. Especially the opportunity to have a siren under their control."

Angel held out her tattooed arm and shook it in Rhys' direction.

"You see this shit? People like you see these and all they can see is dollar signs. You went down into the bunker looking for Handsome Jack's secret weapon, and you found her. You know what he accomplished while I was under his thumb and I'm not naive enough to think you won't be tempted to do the same. If you get me to Sanctuary, I promise I'll apologise, but until then, I can't trust you."

Rhys had to bit the inside of his cheek to stop himself from smiling. Angel would not find the humour in this situation. She had no way of knowing that she wasn't the first woman to demand proof that he wasn't out to screw her over. He really needed to figure out what about him made attractive woman automatically assume he was a scumbag.

"I understand completely," he replied. "I'll come pick you up at 700 hours' tomorrow morning."

Rhys was halfway to the door when a further slice of commentary occurred to him.

"-although, I'd be even more motivated to get you there if that apology came with a hug."

It only took two seconds of Angel glaring at him for Rhys to regret everything he had ever said in his entire life.

"Right. Bad joke. Sorry. Leaving now."

Once he was out in the hallway, Rhys let out a deep breath. He had no idea what he had expected from her, but he had clearly gone in there with some screwed up expectations.

Since meeting her last night, he had managed to create this scenario in his head where he was this noble protector who helped a hurt little girl recover from her traumatic childhood. After all, who better to help her than someone who had also survived Handsome Jack's abusive and manipulative tenancies?

It was starting to hit him how his few weeks of being trapped with Jack paled in comparison to her lifetime of servitude. He had torn out his arm and cut out a part of his robotic eye to be free of Jack, but Angel had been prepared to give everything for the same privilege.

At least he knew what he had to do next. He needed to keep his word to her. She more than deserved it after what she had been through.

Even as Rhys made up his mind, part of him still chafed at the idea. Was he really going to abandon this poor girl on one of the most dangerous planets in the galaxy? What if something happened to her? He couldn't trust the bandits in Sanctuary to keep her safe. Her blood had been on their hands once already.

_'I won't lose her again. I won't let them take my baby girl!'_

Rhys swallowed a lump in his throat. He felt like he was going to be sick. The hallway was spinning around him, painfully bright florescent lights coming from all sides. He collapsed against the wall, all his energy taken up by trying to suppress his gag reflex.

Then the moment passed, and Rhys couldn't remember what he had just been thinking about. He straightened up and glanced around to see if anyone had noticed his momentary episode. He decided he should probably take the rest of the day off. Running a corporation left precious little time to relax, and he had gotten into the bad habit of taking on far more than he could chew.

Next, he'd been fainting in front of a boardroom full of investors, and wouldn't Vaughn have a field day when he heard about that.


	3. has something

Rhys twisted his seatbelt in his fingers. He was trying not to hyper-focus on Angel, but his eyes kept wandering to the rear of the cabin where she was sitting on her own, cheek in her hand as she stared out of the rounded window.

Between them, seated in the two lines of jump seats on either side of the helicopter, were six specially chosen members of Atlas Military's 2nd Infantry Battalion, aka, Calypso's Scorn.

Lieutenant Colonel Norfolk was seated just to Rhys' left, her arms crossed over her chest. She was a burly woman with a blond pixy cut and piercing hazel eyes. Her striking appearance and her reputation as a charismatic leader often led Rhys to call on her when he needed someone to stand beside him and look tough.

The LC herself wasn't overly fond of this arrangement, and she was not shy about letting Rhys know about it. She had almost rejected his request until she had heard the special circumstances surrounding this "delivery."

Everyone on this mission had been told in no uncertain terms to keep a safe distance from 'the package' at all times. The last thing they wanted was another misunderstanding like the hospital hostage fiasco.

Norfolk shifted forward in her seat and caught Rhys' eye.

"Something wrong, Skipper? Y'know, she's not going to disappear if you stop looking at her."

Rhys jolted back into his seat, his shoulder harness jangling.

"W-what? Oh, no. I'm just making sure she's okay."

"Un-hun."

When he was sitting up, Rhys couldn't see Angel around the bulk of Norfolk's biceps. The LC was about a half a foot taller than him when they were sitting down, (most of Rhys' height was in his legs) so she loomed over him like a strict parent.

"I just don't know if I'm doing the right thing here," Rhys admitted.

"It's what she wants, isn't it?

"yes, it is," Rhys replied. He pulled his arm up and rubbed the back of his neck with his cybernetic fingers.

"Then there's nothing to wonder about."

"Sanctuary's coming up fast LC, should we ping them?" the helicopter co-pilot asked, leaning back over his seat.

"Nha, looks like they're already waiting for us. Just set her down easy."

"Yes, ma'am."

Rhys looked out the windshield, immediately seeing what Norfolk had meant. When sanctuary had been ripped from its foundations, many of the structures on the edges of the city had lost bits and pieces. The garage and automobile repair shop out front had made it through the process relatively unscathed, but its parking lot was now jutting out rather awkwardly at ten thousand feet.

Though probably not useful for cars anymore, it made a decent helicopter landing pad. The pilot set them down right next to an inexplicably functioning street light, triple parking across five of the marked spaces.

On the other side of a line of bollards, a small platoon of Crimson Raiders waited, all carrying guns and wearing large helmets that completely covered their faces. At The head of the group was a woman with a slicked back shock of red hair, golden eyes, and a lattice of light blue tattoos down her arm and side, just like Angel's.

Angel undid her harness and was out of her seat in the blink of an eye. She threw open the hatch, dropped down to the pavement, and sprinted over to her fellow siren.

Rhys and Norfolk exchanged a glance and both scrambled to follow her. Norfolk jumped downed first, but paused to help her commander disembark, she knew from experience that Rhys could trip over a two-inch-tall platform if he felt like it.

Angel had her fingers tangled up in the hem of her loose t-shirt. She looked like she would have thrown herself into Lilith's arms if they weren't already crossed tightly over her chest.

Rhys and Norfolk approached them, getting within earshot just in time to here the second half of Lilith's sentence.

"-I thought he was full of shit."

"I know! I… well, I had no idea that I would survive," Angel admitted, tucking her hair back behind one ear. "But you did it! You defeated Jack! He's finally dead!"

"Yeah, we did." Lilith agreed with a slight smirk.

Lilith turned her attention to Rhys, his LC, and the Atlas infantry piling out of the helicopter behind them.

"The others are waiting for us up at the bar, I'll leave my men here if you leave yours."

Rhys glanced at Norfolk, and she nodded.

"Understood, but I'll be accompanying my commander."

"Fine with me. Just keep your piece holstered."

"Ditto, siren."

With that, the four of them started up the stairs towards the dive bar in the centre of town. Angel skipped up the steps three at a time, stopping periodically to wait for the others to catch up.

"It looks so different from this level!" She enthused in Lilith's general direction. "The sky, and the clouds, and the sun. I still can't believe you teleported this whole city. I mean, I knew it was going to happen but when you did it! -and you should have seen the look on Jack's face, he thought he had you cornered but then; boom!"

Angel jumped and landed on the top step. Her long black hair flowed out behind her, caught in the wind.

"Yeah, well, that bait and switch you pulled with the shield battery really gave me an incentive," Lilith replied with a shake of her head. "Go on, the others are waiting."

Angel nodded and dashed through the open doors of Moxxi's bar. Rhys had to stop at the doorway to gawk. The bar was packed full with what had to be every single Vault Hunter currently living on Pandora. Norfolk had a similar reaction and quickly pulled Rhys over to one of the tables and sat him down.

Angel didn't even blink an eyelash. She flitted from one person to the next, calling each by name as she greeted them.

She started with Brick and Mordecai, shaking the hand of the latter while the former picked her right up and tossed her in the air.

"You're awfully solid for a computer program you know," Brick teased, bouncing her as easily as if she were made of Styrofoam.

"I guess you really are a Guardian Angel, now you've come back from the land of the dead, eh, chica?" Mordecai added.

Brick set her down, and Angel turned to greet another siren, this time with blue hair.

"It's a pleasure to finally meet you. I'd thought I'd lost the chance," Maya said as she reached out to take Angel's hands

Angel nodded in agreement, "There are three of us now! There probably hasn't been this many sirens in one place in centuries."

The chair across from Rhys scraped against the floor, and a woman with short black hair and red body armour dropped into the seat.

"Athena! I haven't seen you since the wedding. How are things?" Rhys asked, finally taking his eye off Angel, who was happily chatting to a girl about her age with orange pigtails and a silver cybernetic arm.

"Good, thanks. We've settled down in sanctuary for now. Janey has taken over repairing vehicles for the Vault Hunters. I'm told they go through them like popcorn."

Rhys laughed and said, "I'm sure cleaning the guts off the bumpers must take hours on its own."

Zero approached Angel, his face plate flashing her a **(^_^)/**. She giggled and waved back.

"It really is a miracle that you found her alive," Athena added. "I…I've always regretted the fact I never pieced together the clues about her existence. A lot of people suffered because of what I did on Elpis, but none more than her."

"You couldn't have known. I worked for Hyperion for years, and I never knew."

Athena bowed her head, her headscarf casting her face in shadow.

"We found recordings of her. Jack had us collect them. He told us it was to prevent The Lost Legion from tracking us down and I assumed that she was just an AI he built to look up information for him."

Rhys felt like he should say something more to reassure her, but it didn't feel like his place. As much as he admired Athena, they were acquaintances at best. He probably wouldn't have made the invite to her wedding if his misadventure with Fiona hadn't been the catalyst for Janey proposing to her.

A thoroughly beat up CL4P-TP unit wheeled up to Angel. The others shared looks of mild annoyance, but she smiled wildly and kneeled to kiss him on the top of his head.

"Ah…Athena. You know you're always welcome-" Rhys began.

"No."

Rhys blinked at her, his train of thought so derailed he couldn't remember what he had even been trying to ask her for a second.

"I know your Atlas is nothing like the compony I used to work for, but I can't go back to that life."

Rhys shut his mouth. He hadn't been holding out much hope Athena would change her mind, but it never hurt to ask.

"I'm sure you have no shortage of qualified people," Athena added. She turned to Norfolk and nodded her head approvingly. "This woman looks like she can more than handle herself."

"Thank you, ma'am, it means a lot coming from someone with your reputation," Norfolk replied.

Angel had finally finished greeting everyone who had come to meet her. She fell into one of the chairs pushed up against the bar and took another look around at all her friends.

Her smile faded as she glanced around the room again, searching for something and becoming more concerned when she couldn't find it.

"Wait… where's Roland?" She asked the room at large.

A long silence passed while everyone in the room avoided meeting Angel's eyes.

"Oh… oh no." Angel whispered, both her hands coming up to cover her mouth.

Lilith pushed herself away from the wall she had been leaning against and came over to the bar.

"You're the one with future vision, kiddo. Didn't you see it coming?"

Angel shrunk away from Lilith like a dog whose master was approaching with a rolled-up newspaper.

"It… it wasn't a guarantee. I could see a lot of futures. All I could do is try to steer things towards the best outcome."

"That's pretty convenient. Out of curiosity, were there any where I didn't get captured by Jack?"

"I told you not to come into my chambers!"

"Yeah you did, but I still don't know why you didn't mention you were a siren. Or that Jack had special weapons he could use to manipulate us."

Tears pooled at the edges of Angel's eyes and silently rolled down her cheeks. Rhys leapt to his feet, knocking his chair back, but before he could intercede, the bartender vaulted over her counter and put herself between Lilith and Angel.

Moxxi's low cut dress, impressive endowments, and apparent distaste of the concept of pants, did little to diminish her presence. Even when standing up against a woman who could warp the fabric of reality.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Let's all take a few nice deep breaths," Moxie insisted, holding up her hands like a queen addressing her court.

"We've been through this before, Lilith. Everyone knows that we could sit here all day playing the 'who deserves to be punished for helping Jack' game. I dated him, Athena worked for him, you and Roland found the manufacturing plant where the prototypes for his robot army were made..."

Lilith's cheeks went bright red. She opened her mouth to argue, but Moxxi talked right over her.

"Handsome Jack is the only one who deserves the blame for the awful things that he did. The rest of us were pawns in his fucked-up game. We should all just be thankful that he can't hurt anyone ever again."

The whole bar was dead silent. It was quite the sight to see the toughest bad-asses on Pandora all staring at their feet.

Angel sniffed, she had folded herself up into a small ball on her seat, her arms wrapped protectively around her knees.

"Aww, come here, sugar," Moxxi murmured as she pulled Angel into a hug. The young siren clung to her, letting Moxxi pull her up onto her feet.

"T-thanks Moxxi…" Angel stammered, hastily rubbing the tears from her eyes, "This might sound super awkward, but at one point I was really hoping you might be my new mom."

Moxxi's eye twitched, but she recovered before her reaction got more obvious.

"Let's get you something to drink," Moxxi offered, pulling Angel with her back around the bar.

Rhys found his seat again, though he was having a lot of second thoughts about leaving Angel in sanctuary.

"Well, at least Lilith didn't put her on trial in front of a firing squad," Athena offered.

"Wait… she does that?"

"Sometimes."

Rhys made a 'hurk' sound and folded his hands very tightly in his lap. Maybe if he moved quick enough, he could rush over to Angel, snatch her up, and get to the helicopter before anyone decided to give chase.

"We should probably get going, she seems to have settled in alright," Norfolk suggested. When Rhys didn't respond, she leant over and elbowed him in the ribs.

"Ack! Alright, alright, just give me two minutes."

Rhys slipped a hand into his pocket and took out a handheld ECHO communicator. He stood and began making his way towards the bar.

Angel looked up from her chipped mug full of tea. She seemed to have recovered, the only evidence of her breakdown in the red circles around her eyes.

"Hey I-"

It what seemed like a single fluid movement, Angel dropped her cup, threw herself over the bar, and wrapped her arms around Rhys' shoulders. Rhys was so surprised it took him a few seconds before he returned the hug. His fingers brushed over her dark hair, and he pressed a hand between her shoulders. A sense of deja vu washed over Rhys. Tiny details, like how she smelled, and the gentle grip around his neck, resonated in his mind.

"I'm so sorry I ever doubted you. I can never thank you enough for finding me and for bringing me here," Angel said.

"It was really nothing," Rhys reassured her. "And hey, I got you a better present this time."

They parted, and Rhys passed her the ECHO device.

"I hope you don't mind. I went ahead and put my number in it. If you need anything, don't hesitate to call, alright?"

Angel looked down at the blank screen, her eyebrows furrowing as if she were trying to win a staring contest with it. The tattoos on her arm lit up, then the screen flashed to life without her even touching the buttons. The home screen flashed wildly like a fish floundering on the deck of a boat.

Angel's tattoos flickered out, along with the screen. The Atlas logo appeared, along with a loading bar that displayed the time left until it finished rebooting.

"Sorry, I just needed to make sure it..." Angel started explaining, but she changed her mind halfway through the sentence. The reboot sequence finished, and the home screen returned as if nothing had happened.

"Thanks. I promise I'll call," Angel said, tucking the echo unit into the front pocket of her jeans.

Rhys was caught between trying to continue the conversation and trying to figure out what had just happened.

"Uhhh…"

Luckily for Rhys, Norfolk came up behind him and took his arm. "Time's up, dumbass. Cm'on."

"Bye!" Angel called, the other Vault Hunters offering similar parting words as he was lead out. The only person who didn't join in was Lilith, who had slunk into a corner after her dressing down at Moxxi's hands.

Rhys's eyes met hers, and for a split second, white hot anger flashed through him. He longed to stamp his foot down on her neck until her spine shattered and she drowned in her own blood.

Then Rhys was back outside in the blinding sun and the moment passed, leaving only a foggy haze. Down the stairs, the balance of calypso's scorn were taking turns shooting pieces of garbage off each other's heads with the Crimson Raiders.

Norfolk grunted in disgust, dragging Rhys down the steps as she closed in on her men.

"Zeus on Olympus, I can't leave them alone for five fucking minutes, can I?!"


	4. after all

"Rhys?"

At the sound of his name, Rhys straightened up and looked around his office. The workday at Atlas' Pandorian compound had ended a few hours ago, and the lights in the office had switched into a dimmed nighttime mode. He checked over all the dark corners, but he didn't see anyone and the door to his office was still closed.

Rhys shook his head. He really should rearrange his schedule so he got to bed **before** he started hallucinating. He rested his hand on his computer mouse, intending to start the shutdown sequence, but instead of his desktop, the monitor was displaying a head and shoulders shot of a young woman with piercing blue eyes.

"Ghahaha!" Rhys yelped and nearly toppled his desk chair over backwards as he jerked away from the screen.

"Angel!"

Rhys grabbed the arms of his chair, squeezing them until the moment of shock was over. Rhys really wished she wouldn't pop up like that, it reminded him way too much of an AI he had known with a similar disregard for his privacy. He didn't dare tell Angel, though, since she might take it as a reason to stop coming to him altogether.

Rhys cleared his throat and said, "Sorry I uh… I didn't see you there…"

The image of Angel on the screen nodded. The first time she had done this, she had explained that her powers allowed her to tap into any computer network if she had access to a native device. Rhys had no way of knowing that when he gave her an Atlas ECHO, but in hindsight, he supposed It wasn't all that different from video calling… Except for the fact that she could do it whenever she liked and her lips never moved.

"It's okay. Do... do you have a second to talk?" Angel asked.

"Yeah, what is it? is something wrong?"

Angel hesitated. The projection she provided when she took over a device always unsettled Rhys just a little. It was uncanny, but at the same time hyper-realistic, and when the 'camera' zoomed close on her eyes, he could swear he saw flashes of computer code in the centre of her blue irises.

"Can I come in?

"You're here?

"Just outside."

"W-what?"

Rhys swivelled in his chair. The last time he had looked, it was dark and pouring rain outside, and by the look of things out his office window, that hadn't changed.

Rhys got to his feet so fast his wheeling chair collided with the wall behind him.

Aside from the watchtowers, the Atlas compound on Pandora consisted entirely of single story buildings connected by indoor walkways. Together they formed a gigantic square with the Atlas Military training fields in the middle. Rhys' building was the first you encountered after making it past the gates and included all of the office space in the compound.

The secretary in the lobby gave Rhys a confused look as he jogged past her and burst out the main doors.

The rain was coming down even faster than it had looked. Less like a shower and more like the sky had decided to try its best waterfall impression.

Rhys twisted around, his hair already so damp that it was getting in his eyes.

He found her huddled in a ball near the doorway, soaked to the bone and shivering.

Rhys wrapped his right arm around her hips, using the strength of his cybernetics to pull her up. His only thought was to get her inside and get help. She could be injured, or have hypothermia, maybe even a broken leg.

The glass doors parted to let them pass and the two of them stepped into the main lobby, leaving a trail of rainwater across the massive Atlas logo embedded in the floor.

The secretary dropped her bottle of nail polish, looking open-mouthed from her boss to the drenched siren he was holding.

"Sir?"

"Break out the first aid kit and get me an emergency blanket," Rhys snapped.

"Rhys… I'm fine. It's just water," Angel murmured.

She stepped away from him and pulled her sopping hair out of her face. She was still wearing the jeans and t-shirt given to her when she left the Atlas medical centre but she had strapped various pieces of mismatched armour over it, Including a Kevlar combat vest, metal shoulder pads, and skag-leather shin guards.

No one could deny that She looked the part of a Pandorian bandit. Rhys usually appreciated the rough around the edges look, but on Angel it just made his chest hurt.

"What the hell were you doing, Angel?" Rhys asked, the question coming out far harsher than he intended.

"I…. I don't know. I'm Sorry," Angel stammered.

Rhys bit his bottom lip, this clearly wasn't the time to press her.

"It's okay. We'll talk about it later."

The secretary returned with a large piece of reflective Mylar. She and Rhys took a side and wrapped it around her shoulders. Angel huffed in frustration, leaving the blanket to hang over her shoulders like a cape

"Go fetch Dr Greenwich, he should still be on duty."

"Rhys!" Angel barked, startling the poor secretary into leaping away from her. Rhys winced. He knew he was being overbearing, but Pandora was the kind of place where people died because they scraped themselves with a piece of rusty metal.

"Alright, alright…" Rhys relented. He dismissed the secretary and offered a hand to Angel.

"Let's just get you warmed up, okay?"

"Okay."

* * *

 

After his experience living and working in the shark tank that was Helios, Rhys had made a point to structure Atlas to discourage upward mobility via murder. Thus, the office of CEO didn't come with quite as many perks. His living space was about the same size as any key staff member, with a single bedroom open plan kitchen, a living room, and a study.

It felt strange bringing Angel into what was essentially his apartment, but she clearly wanted to keep this visit as low profile as possible. He'd shown her to the bathroom and had plopped himself down on the sofa to wait.

He could hear the shower running through the open bedroom door, she seemed to be taking a while but he probably would too if he'd been out in that rain.

Rhys couldn't stop thinking about what might have happened to her. Each scenario he thought of seemed worst than the last.

The bathroom door creaked as it opened just a little.

"Hey, Rhys?"

Rhys heard the question in her inflexion and realised instantly what had slipped his mind.

"Fuck, I forgot to give you something to wear, didn't I?

The pause that followed was as good as a confirmation. Rhys went back into his bedroom keeping his back to the bathroom door as he threw open the doors to his closet.

It didn't look very promising. Rhys' ran his fingers over a row of dress shirts, almost all of them were tailored to fit him and probably wouldn't respond well to being worn by anyone who's chest couldn't double as an ironing board.

Rhys dug passed them, into the long-forgotten annals of stuff that he bought, had worn once and never again.

There was a box of ties that had gone out of style years ago, a pair of pants from that time he took kickboxing lessons for three weeks, and a pile of T-shirts from conventions and live events he had attended with Vaughn.

Rhys shifted through them until he found the least embarrassing one. It was a solid black with a white logo of a stylised T made to look like a stake, crossed with two additional stakes.

The pants were a completely different kettle of fish. Rhys' legs were so long that absolutely none of them would fit Angel, even rolled up.

He didn't have a single pair of shorts or capris to fall back on, so Rhys snatched up a pair of grey sweatpants and dropped both items at the foot of the bathroom door.

"I'll just leave them here. Do you want some hot chocolate?"

"Uh... sure."

Rhys turned to leave just as Angel added, "I wouldn't mind a splash of bourbon in mine if you've got any."

Rhys held back his knee-jerk response of 'really?' and replied "sure, I'll have a look."

He retreated from the bedroom and into the kitchen, busying himself with finding the powder, milk, and boiling the water.

Angel emerged a few minutes later, wearing the t-shirt and, apparently, nothing else.

"The pants didn't fit," She explained, walking over and plopping herself down on one of the stools pushed up against the kitchen counter.

"Yeah, sorry. Turns out my wardrobe isn't as flexible as I thought it was. I- um… I have some pretty neat socks if you're interested?" Rhys offered, holding out a mug for her to take.

Angel laughed and took her hot cocoa. She blew gently on the top then took a small sip.

Rhys decided to follow her lead and tipped a little of the bourbon bottle out into his mug before taking a sip. The alcohol was so strong it almost wiped out the taste of the chocolate entirely.

"Is this Eden 6 reserve?" Angel asked, turning the bottle around to look at the label. "That was my dad's favourite."

Rhys caught himself before he replied 'yeah, I know'. He had bought the damn thing back when he would have used Handsome Jack's favourite toothpaste if he'd known what it was.

Angel didn't seem to think it served more comment, though, because she immediately changed the subject by asking; "Why do you have your eyes like that?"

"Oh… my implant?" Rhys replied. "It's helpful, it's just the same as having an ECHO unit but you can't lose your device and they-"

"No, I understand why you have them, but why have different coloured irises?"

Rhys blinked at her. He'd never really thought about it before. He just figured he might as well since he could.

"It's cool? You know asymmetry and… stuff…" Rhys replied.

"Heterochromia is a very rare genetic condition. The first thing anyone is going to assume when they see your eyes is that you're faking it, and once they look closer and see the implants they'll be justified in that assumption. It kind of screams 'look at me! I want to be special even though I'm not.'"

"Ummmmm… right…"

They lapsed into silence so deep you could hear the refrigerator humming.

"Angel, are you ready to talk about what happened?" Rhys asked.

Angel's fingers tightened around her mug and her shoulders hunched. She fixed her gaze on the floor and her damp black hair cascaded over her shoulder, covering her eyes.

"Why did you leave sanctuary? Did something happen? Did someone hurt you?" Rhys asked hardly pausing in between the questions.

"No! it was fine! Everyone was wonderful! I just..."

"Just what?"

"I don't deserve it."

"What?"

Angel slammed her mug down. She took a deep breath that barely avoided becoming a sob.

"I'm the reason sanctuary is like that. Why it's a half-destroyed piece of flying crap. I tricked them into replacing their shield battery with a fake and I left the whole city open to a Hyperion mortar bombardment."

Angel pressed her hands over her eyes as if she could physically hold back her tears.

"There are survivors there who lost people they care about in that attack. Family members, partners… there all dead because of **me**."

Rhys' mouth hung open. He couldn't help thinking back to the fall of Helios. There was a lot of innocent blood on his hands as well.

"You heard Moxxi, Angel. That wasn't your fault, Handsome Jack-"

"I'm the **Guardian** Angel, Rhys! I was supposed to protect them. They believed in me, and I betrayed them. I decided it was for the greater good and I didn't think about the cost."

Rhys bit the side of his cheek, he hadn't really thought about the cost either. Anything seemed better than leaving Jack in charge of Helios.

"-If Jack hadn't attacked sanctuary, Lilith wouldn't have revealed herself. If Lilith hadn't taken my place, then Jack wouldn't have put himself out in the open. The only thing that would override his cowardice was his thirst for vengeance. It all seemed so simple when I was planning it out, but now It's over and Roland is dead, Lilith was tortured, and the last safe harbour on Pandora was half destroyed all because **I** decided it was worth it."

Rhys placed his own mug on the counter. He wanted to tell her that he knew exactly how she felt, that she couldn't shoulder all the blame when there had been so many factors at play. That she had done what she thought was right and that Pandora was a better place because she had been prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice.

In the end, though, he asked, "So you can't see the future anymore?"

Angel shook her head, finally pulling her hands away from her eyes. Tears still streaked her cheeks, but the worse seemed to have past.

"I had the power of the Hyperion network behind me. It wasn't really 'seeing' the future. I was just calculating probabilities and finding the most likely outcomes. I was so good at predicting how people would react in different circumstances. I could've manipulated a bandit king into trading his best weapons for a handful of magic beans."

Angel sniffled, her lips pulling up into a bitter smile.

"Jack used to gloat about it. He'd say that, no matter how badass they were, anyone would happily lay down they're life for a pretty girl with big blue eyes."

Rhys stepped around the counter. He didn't want to overstep her boundaries, but he'd never seen anyone who needed a hug more than she did. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and Angel practically melted against him.

"Angel, you did the best you could. You helped save Pandora."

"I… I know... It just feels like… it still feels like it's all my fault."

Rhys ran his hand down Angel's back over and over, giving her time to relax and get her breathing back to normal.

"Listen…. I didn't offer this before because I didn't want you to feel like I was trying to trick you into staying, but if you want it, you'll always have a place at Atlas. Most of the staff here are newcomers to Pandora and a lot of them agreed to come all the way out here because they wanted a fresh start."

Angel pulled herself backwards and Rhys dropped his arms.

"T-thanks Rhys… but what would I even do here? I didn't exactly have time to build a resume when I was locked up and I never went to school..."

"You can do whatever you want. We do a lot of the training on the job, but if you need something we can't do in-house, then we'll sign you up for an Atlas prospective employee scholarship."

Angel frowned, her eyebrows meeting in the middle as she thought it over.

"Do you need any new privates?"

"Ah… yes, always. It's kind of hard to get people willing to keep order on a notorious death planet, -but are you sure…"

"I know how to fight. My friends have been teaching me."

Rhys grit his teeth together. The last thing he wanted was to intentionally send Angel into dangerous situations. The thought of her getting injured or worse on his orders made his stomach twist up. Maybe he could set her up high enough up the chain of command that she wouldn't have to do field work?

"Well, we are currently missing a Commandant…"

"No," Angel snapped, "the last thing I need is someone in power handing me things I didn't earn just because I'm a siren."

Rhys sighed. It was still better than her being out on her own, but only by a very fine margin.

"Alright, why don't you stay here tonight? -and tomorrow I'll bring you to LC Norfolk, and she'll decide if you have what it takes. I'll tell her to evaluate you as she would any recruit, no special treatment."

Angel nodded, satisfied.

"One last thing, I'm sleeping on the couch..."

"Wha-?"

"I know you're going to the noble thing and offer me your bed, but I don't need it."

Angel picked up her mug and walked over to the couch to stake her claim. She set herself down and pulled her legs up onto it.

"I don't really need the power of a supercomputer to tell that your way too into playing the white knight," Angel added.

Rhys winced, but she did have a point.

"Will her ladyship allow her white knight to fetch her some blankets?"

"She will."

* * *

 

Rhys rolled over in bed, groping half-blindly for the glass of water by his bedside. If there was one major downside to living on Pandora, it was how difficult it was to stay hydrated.

He gulped down the few sips left in the glass but it didn't manage to dispel the dryness in his throat. With a groan, Rhys pulled himself out of bed and headed towards the kitchen.

Just as he took the first few steps into the living room, Rhys remembered his house guest. He glanced over to the sofa. Angel was laying on her side, her arms curled around one of his decorative throw pillows.

Moving as quietly as he could, Rhys stole over to the kitchen sink and turned on the drinking water filter attached to the faucet. A slow stream of cold water poured into his empty glass. It was too dark to see properly, so Rhys put his human thumb over the edge to feel when it was nearly full.

He switched the filter off and was making his way back to his room when his eyes fell on Angel again. He placed his cup on the edge of the counter and snuck over to her.

He wasn't quite sure what he was doing, and he had the vague sense that he shouldn't be doing whatever it was, but he also couldn't seem to stop himself. It was like he was stuck in a dream where he simply accepted what was happening to him as an inevitability.

He kneeled beside her head. Her hair was dry now and strands were sticking up all over. The two triangle shaped implants on the side of her skull stood out against the black peach fuzz that was just starting to grow in.

Rhys leant in and pressed a soft kiss to her forehead.

_'She's finally back where she belongs.'_

Rhys stood up, collected his glass and headed back to his room. He paused at the door. Leaning against the frame to get one last look.

_'You nearly fucked it up, cupcake, but she came back to us.'_

"Goodnight princess," Rhys murmured under his breath.

* * *

 

As a rule, Rhys considered it his right as CEO to sleep in till 9 am every day. Unfortunately, because of the extreme temperatures on Pandora, most Atlas Military activities took place before or at the crack of dawn.

Rhys had tried to talk Norfolk into postponing her examination until that night, but she had just given him an earful about how the whole base couldn't run on the schedules of the stuffed shirts.

And so, he found himself up before the sun and standing in an huge open field with the Atlas recruits, who were preparing for another day of boot camp.

Angel was bright eyed and bushytailed, even though she couldn't have slept all that well on Rhys' couch. She was back in her makeshift armour, shirt, and jeans, which had all dried overnight.

"She's a little on the skinny side for what I'll usually accept," Norfolk observed, once she had completed her slow circle around Angel. "How would you feel about packing on about ten pounds?"

"I wouldn't mind trying," Angel replied with a shrug of her shoulders.

"Won't be that hard. All the recruits are on a strict high protein diet. You might even gain some muscle while we're at it."

Norfolk looked Angel up and down again, paying special attention to her tattoos.

"So, what kinda powers are you packing?" Norfolk asked.

"With all due respect, ma'am, I don't want my siren abilities to be the deciding factor here.

"Your integrity is noted soldier, but I can't accept you onto my team if your capabilities are a huge question mark. You could end up being a huge liability and I can't risk the safety of my men just because you have an inferiority complex.

"Norfolk!" Rhys hissed, but she and Angel ignored him.

"Yes, ma'am. Do you have a target I could use?"

Norfolk jabbed a finger over her shoulder, pointing to a line of close-combat training dummies.

Angel made her way over to them. Rhys and Norfolk trailing behind. The other recruits had been ordered to stay where they were, but Rhys could see a few of them shuffling closer.

Angel stood ten feet in front of the dummies and lifted her tattooed arm.

"Before I left, Maya helped me hone my elemental control," Angel explained.

Her tattoos lit up and blue electricity crackled over her fingertips. Bright white wings exploded into life, hovering over both of Angel's shoulder blades.

A crack of thunder split the air and a bolt of shock energy forked out from Angel. It hit the middle dummy straight in the chest, sending it flying. It arched through the air and hit the dirt half a kilometre away.

"Holy shit!"

It wasn't quite clear which of the recruits shouted but a glare from Norfolk silenced them.

Angel pulled her arms back in, drawing the energy to her and cloaking herself in the rolling bolts.

Rhys gasped, but Angel didn't seem to be in any pain despite the maelstrom around her. She walked up to the remaining two dummies. As soon as she got within arms reach, lighting bolts shot out and sent them flying just like the first.

"So, it works both offensively and defensively," Norfolk said.

Angel banished the lighting bolts and took the ECHO Rhys had given her out of her pocket, tossing it in the air and catching it.

"I can also take administrative control over any technology connected to the Atlas network," Angel explained.

She scanned the training ground searching for something to demonstrate on. Her eyes fell on the large lighting rigs were set up along the edges of the training field. She closed her eyes and the lights flickered. One by one the bulbs when dark, creating a shockwave that went from one side of the field to the other, plunging the whole area into early morning darkness.

This time the other recruits managed to keep their reactions quiet, but when Rhys looked over at them he could tell that they found this display of power even more intimidating than the last. At least shock damage was something they had trained for, and, if given the right weapon, anyone could wield it, -but this was more like witchcraft than a strategic advantage.

"Interesting," Norfolk said, no-selling so hard Rhys briefly wondered if he should pull her aside and make her take a turing test.

"-I'll have to talk to my specialists about that one. I'm sure it could be very useful if applied correctly. Anything else?"

Angel glanced over at Rhys, and he shook his head at her. As far as he was concerned, Norfolk didn't need to know about her environmental manipulation abilities. The LC had been surprisingly accepting of weird shit up to this point, but if she knew that Angel could render her basic senses worthless and warp her perception of reality, she'd refuse to take her at best and have a mental breakdown at worst.

Some of the first responders to Angel's hostage situation had to be taken off duty to recover, while others had made up false memories of the ice being cleared away to rationalise what they had seen.

Angel pocketed her device and shook her head.

"No ma'am, but both of my fellow sirens have told me that they discovered previously unknown powers as they gained combat experience. Things like reflecting enemy fire, or healing teammates."

"So, we're going to have to figure it out together," Norfolk said, her lips curling into a small smile.

"Alright, Angel. Go see Sara in the depot and get yourself a uniform. Once you're suited up, I want you back here to start your first day of boot camp."

"So, I'm in?"

"Not quite yet. I don't take anyone until they've finished basic training. No matter how much lighting they can shoot out their ass."

Angel beamed and gave her soon-to-be commander a slightly crooked salute before heading off towards the barracks.

Once she was safely out of earshot, Rhys leant over to Norfolk and whispered, "Do you really think she can handle it?"

"Hard to say. I'm rooting for her, though. Be damn nice having a siren on my side."

Norfolk took Rhys by the cybernetic arm and pulled him further away from the recruits. Norfolk might have had a bad habit of backtalking her commander past the point of insubordination, but at least she respected him enough to not want to be overheard while she did it.

"-Just so we're clear, I don't want to be looking over my shoulder constantly for the next five weeks to shoo away a nosy CEO."

Rhys tilted his head at her, then he realised she was talking about him.

"Wait… What?"

"You know the rules, Skipper. No contact with friends or family until after boot camp is completed."

"But I'm her commander!"

"No, you're my commander and I'm her commander. That's how the chain of command works. If you want a progress report, you can ask me, but you don't go over my head and get your mother-hen feathers all over my recruit. Got it?"

Rhys grit his teeth together. She couldn't really be serious. Once Angel picked out her bed in the barracks they would be sleeping less than 500 meters away from each other. What was he supposed to do, run the other way whenever he was about to pass her in a hallway?

"Okay 1, I don't have feathers, and 2, I can't just go around avoiding her for months," Rhys grumbled.

Norfolk rolled her eyes.

"Just don't hover. That's all I'm asking."

"Fine… but please, try to take care of her? She's had a really tough time lately."

"You're the one who's always giving those big damn speeches about how we're a big family here at Atlas. Last time I checked we always watched out for our own."

Rhys cracked a half smile, a very rare occurrence when he was talking to Norfolk.

"Well, at least someone listens," he said with a sigh.

* * *

 

Rhys took the long hike back to the administrative side of the compound alone.

He was planning on heading straight back to bed. Getting told off by Norfolk tended to drain his batteries even when he hadn't gotten up at 5 am.

He still didn't like her terms, but now that he was starting to think about It, he realised Norfolk had a point. Maybe it would be best if Angel got the authentic experience without him breathing down her neck.

_'No, she doesn't have a point, numb-nuts. That psychotic bitch of yours is going to get my baby killed!'_

"It's only boot camp. We don't train with live ammunition, Jack." Rhys muttered, he pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes. His head was throbbing, and he had to stop walking or risk tripping over his own feet.

"Jack?"

This time Rhys couldn't pass it off as just one of his own thoughts straying out of character. That had felt like he was talking to someone else.

Then there was what happened last night. When he thought back on it, it struck Rhys how fucking creepy it was. She was asleep and he just…

It had seemed so sweet and natural in the moment, but he hardly knew her, he wasn't her father.

At least, most of him wasn't.

"Jack, are you here, somewhere?"

Rhys felt so stupid talking to himself, but he didn't know what else to do. Either he was going crazy, or he wasn't as alone as he had thought.

One thing was for sure, being around Angel was making it worse.

Maybe this time apart was just what he needed. Two months to figure out what the hell this was and how to fix it. If it even could be fixed.

Please, let this be something he could fix.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, I don't like leaving long author's notes because I like to believe my writing speaks for itself and that I as the author don't have the right to tell anyone what conclusions to draw from reading my work.
> 
> That said I basically wrote my dumb ass into a hole here, so explanations are in order.
> 
> When I wrote this story, it was supposed to be a 3-part mood piece inspired by like two lines of lyrics in a song, light on plot heavy on feels, - but as what often happens when your writing without a planned structure, I realized halfway through I could use this story as set up for another story.
> 
> So, I went back in before publishing and started burying the foundations for part 2. (It was good practice since usually the off-the-cuff nature of fanfic means you never get to rewrite)
> 
> But In hindsight, I realised that in planting my foreshadowing I might have inadvertently made the foreshadowing the most Interesting part of this story and that when we got to the end, it would feel un-hilariously anticlimactic.
> 
> So TL;DR I know this ending sucks, and I'm sorry.
> 
> To make matters worse, I can't just say "part two is coming, wait for it" because part two is… dark. Like E rated, content warning covered, 'what is wrong with you', dark.
> 
> So, if you, dear reader, we're here for the fluff. I strongly suggest you leave it here. I'm sorry the subplot with Jack went nowhere, but, honestly, that's for the best because having him involved rarely goes nice places.
> 
> Otherwise, part two will be a new story entry connected to this one with A03's series system so I can give it a separate rating/warning and a clear summary.
> 
> So, say tuned for that? (You probably shouldn't.)


End file.
